Punctuation makes your message clear and easy to read. It helps a reader better understand a piece of text when the writer provides signals (punctuation) in his/her phrases and sentences.

• Notice effective or unusual use of punctation marks by authors

• Try out new ways of using punctuation

• Understand the use of ellipses ( . . . ) to show pause or anticipation, usually before something surprising

• Use dashes to indicate a longer pause or slow down the reading to emphasize particular information

• Consistently use periods, exclamation points, and questions marks as ending marks

• Use commas and quotation marks correctly in writing dialogue--

  
  

  (If a direct quotation is interrupted mid-sentence, do not capitalize the second part of the quotation.

  
  

  "I didn't see an actual alien being," Mr. Johnson said, "but I sure wish I had.")

• Use apostrophes in contractions and possessives

• apostrophe tips

• Use commas to identify a series, introduce a speaker or introduce a clause

• Use brackets to set aside a different idea or kind of information

• Use colons to indicate something is explained or described

• Use commas and parentheses to set off parenthetical information

• Use hyphens to divide words

• Use indentation to identify paragraphs

• Use semicolons to divide related parts of a compound sentence